Penny Dreadful: "Resurrection"Review

Share.

We rot a zoo.

By Matt Fowler

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

With "Resurrection," I continued to be impressed with how strong Penny Dreadful is as a series right out of the gate. It has somehow, through intensity of tone and potency of words, managed to overcome the usual stumbling blocks of a show during a freshman outing. Perhaps we're simply witnessing its confidence in overall form and being, as most shows take a few episodes (or seasons even) to organically figure out what they want to be.

We were given another bit of "night work" this week with Ethan finally stumbling back into the demimonde fold, eager to assist in anything needing doing so that he could buy medicine for Brona. And through this midnight excursion to the London Zoo, a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Namely, how Mina came to be in the predicament she's in (with a cool reference to Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker's Dracula novel) and the fact that she'd taken up with an unidentified nobleman who now held some sort of power over her. Malcolm usually refers to this dire entity as a "creature," but now that the series has a Renfield surrogate (or perhaps just a precursor to Renfield), in the form of the frothing, insane Fenton, the term "master" is being creepily volleyed about.

We also know, thanks to Malcolm, that Vanessa may be the woman that the "creature/master" desires over all else. Obviously, Malcolm isn't telling Vanessa about the fact that she appears to be some sort of targeted vessel for the whole Amunet/Amun-ra end times collusion. And while I'm on the topic of characters not fully explaining things, I enjoyed how Malcolm told Ethan to let any events that might proceed Vanessa's strange spiritual behavior "unfold." Which is to say, "After she's possessed she likes to bang the first guy she sees. Just go with it." On a show mostly devoid of humor in any form, it was a much appreciated moment of levity.

By the end, Malcolm, Vanessa, Ethan, Victor, and Sembene were all in the same parlor, taking a vow to be true to one another and brutal to their enemies. The monster squad (comprised of monsters) forming for the first time. "No one in this room is kind," Malcolm noted, even as Ethan objected to some of their tactics regarding Fenton. Perhaps in an attempt to atone for whatever his past sins are. You know, whatever it was that has him on the run from the law.

Oh, and remember when I likened Ethan's character to Tom Cruise's "Nathan" in The Last Samurai (which creator/writer John Logan also wrote) back in my pilot review? Well, one of the key components missing for a true comparison was Ethan's warrior backstory. And now we know that, like Nathan, Ethan had been a part of the disturbingly amoral Indian Wars. And given the fact that Nathan was also performing in a "Wild West" show when we first met him in Samurai, the parallels are quite stunning. It's as if Nathan was transplanted into a new story - one that also involves becoming immersed in a strange, foreign (albeit undead) culture.

"That there's a cookie, not a biscuit!"

Of course, that's not all there is to Josh Hartnett's Ethan. In fact, given the scene with the wolves at the zoo, it looks like one of the fan theories about Mr. Chandler and his penchant for blacking out and digging his own fingernails into his palm may be on point.

Since the field trip to the zoo only yielded a chained-up madman, our "heroes" are really no closer to catching Count Dracula. Which is perfect, actually. More than likely, the Count will pop up on his own and reveal himself to them when he feels like it. But until that happens, I'm absolutely loving how the show is keeping him as much of a mystery as possible. We've seen so many incarnations of Dracula in movies and on TV that I'm very happy to see him treated with such reverence. It's as if his mythos, which we've all become overly familiar with, is being built back up anew. Rebranded and reinvigorated.

Wow, and I haven't even written anything about the best part of this episode yet! Sure, the vampire hunting was fun, but the wondrous, agonizing heart of "Resurrection" dealt with Victor being confronted by his original creature - who I'll just call Caliban from now on, in honor of his nom de théâtre (and so I don't use the word "creature" too much). Well, it turns out that Victor was an even bigger son of a bitch than I presumed last week when I thought that he just actively didn't care there was a dangerous monster roaming the streets of his own design. The miserable truth is that Victor didn't even spend enough time around Caliban to know whether he was a lunatic or not. The good doctor ran out of the birthing room, like a coward, within seconds of Caliban's first traumatized screams.

And then the truth, despite Caliban's vicious mauling of Proteus, was much more complex and touching than we could have imagined. Caliban having to, essentially, rear himself in solitude. And then experience with both cruelty and mercy on his own. All because he didn't immediately represent the poetic serenity that Victor imagined newly animated life would present. And man, just the fact that Victor not only never thought about returning to the old lab to check on Caliban but also decided to try it all over again really paints him out to be the real horror.

Another interesting point is that while Caliban is named after a sort of gruesome representation of man's "id" from The Tempest, he's actually looking for love connection. Whereas the character of Caliban from the play would simply rape to satisfy his base urges. Hell, even in the new "bloodily modernized" version of The Tempest that the theater group is performing (to be tackled after they're done with Sweeney Todd, apparently), Caliban eats Prospero.

Granted, we might not know Caliban's full story yet. As in, did he really only look longingly at the pretty actress he admired, or did something else go down? As it stands though, he remains a glorious, complex creation - capable of enormous harm while also searching for a life companion. And, so far, his track record for brutality seems to be only the killing of Proteus. And that's it. Done out of pure spite, born of rejection. Still, a malformed man who never tires and swears to follow you "into the maelstrom of the blackest tempest of the darkest night" is worth heeding. And great scene work by both Harry Treadaway and Rory Kinnear here.

However, given what Victor had just endured with Caliban, I was very surprised to see him hold up so well around Malcolm, Vanessa, and Ethan. It was as if he hadn't spent the previous hours in abject terror. Fortunately, as nice indicator of what had just transpired in his life, Victor said a few words to Malcolm right before he left about the responsibility involved with creating new life. So there it was. A scared-s***less character arc in one episode.

The Verdict

Séances aside, the past two episodes have really drawn out Victor's story - with Proteus and Caliban - as the most interesting part of the show so far. Not to diminish everything else, but it's the Frankenstein tale that's giving us the most answers right up front.

Right now though, it remains its own side story - separate from all the other characters. Though I'm suspect that everything will get all tangled up by the end of the season. No new clarity involving the demonic words spoken by Vanessa during the spirit session last week - the ones that seemed to paint Malcolm in a rather ugly light where it concerns Mina. Again though, could those have just been scattershot obscenities from an evil force - ala Pazuzu in The Exorcist? Either way, the show is determined to go forward portraying Malcolm's affections for Mina as earnest and paternal as possible. And it's the information that's being held back that's turning Penny Dreadful into an exciting, suspenseful series.